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Queen of Knives is an opera in two acts by the American composer Eric Stern. The English libretto was written by the composer. The opera premiered in Portland, Oregon, on May 7, 2010, at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. Noah Mickens directed the premiere and the opera was produced by Vagabond Opera and Wanderlust Circus.
Queen of Knives premiered at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center In Portland, Oregon, May 7, 2010, and ran for a two-week extended run, for a total of ten performances.
Musical Director: Eric Stern; Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet: Robin Jackson; Trumpet: Kate Presley; Percussion: Mark Burdon; Piano, Accordion: Eric Stern; Violin: Griff Bear;Cello: Skip Von Kuske; Bass: Matthew Rotchford
Set in the early 1960s in a traveling carnival in the midst of the student protests in Birmingham, Alabama, the opera tells the story of a brother and sister knife-throwing act.
Leatherman is an American brand of Multi-Tool made by Leatherman Tool Group of Portland, Oregon. The company was founded in July 1983 by Timothy S. Leatherman and Steve Berliner in order to market the former's idea of a capable, easily portable hand tool with multiple functions. That same year, Leatherman Tool Group sold its first Multi-Tool, which was called the PST.
Knife throwing is an art, sport, combat skill, or variously an entertainment technique, involving an artist skilled in the art of throwing knives, the weapons thrown, and a target. In some stage performances, the knife thrower ties an assistant to the target and throws to miss them.
Jason Webley is an American musician known for his fusion of folk, experimental, and alternative music. Webley plays the guitar and accordion, sometimes providing percussion by stomping or shaking a plastic vodka bottle filled with coins. Webley began his career performing solo, but has collaborated with a wide range of artists. He has also organized several commemorative concerts and events memorializing everything from tragedies in his hometown of Everett, Washington, to tomatoes.
Gerber Legendary Blades is an American maker of knives, multitools, and other tools for outdoors and military headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Gerber is owned by the Finnish outdoors products company Fiskars. Gerber was established in 1939 by Pete Gerber.
George Edward Bruns was an American composer of music for film and television. His accolades include four Academy Award nominations and three Grammy Award nominations. He is mainly known for his compositions for numerous Disney films from the 1950s to the 1970s, among them Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Love Bug (1968), The Aristocats (1970), and Robin Hood (1973).
Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded as the Center Opera Company in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Oliver Knussen and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen. Its latest commissioned piece and world premiere, The Fix – based on the story of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, the Chicago White Sox, and their attempt to fix the world series. with music by Joel Puckett and libretto by Eric Simonson – was presented in February 2019. The President and General Director is Ryan Taylor, and the Artistic Director is Dale Johnson.
Eric Salzman was an American composer, scholar, author, impresario, music critic, and record producer. He is known for advancing the concept of "New Music Theater" as an independent art form differing in scope, both economically and aesthetically, from grand opera and contemporary popular musicals. He co-founded the American Music Theater Festival and was, at the time of his death in 2017, Composer-in-Residence at the Center for Contemporary Opera.
Kershaw Knives designs, sources and manufactures a wide range of knives, including pocketknives, sporting knives, and kitchen cutlery. Kershaw is a brand of Kai USA Ltd., a member of the KAI Group, headquartered in Tualatin, Oregon, United States.
Overlook is a neighborhood in the North section of Portland, Oregon on the east shore of the Willamette River. It borders University Park and Arbor Lodge on the north, Humboldt and Boise on the east, Eliot on the southeast, and Northwest Industrial and the Northwest District across the Willamette on the west.
Impalement arts are a type of performing art in which a performer plays the role of human target for a fellow performer who demonstrates accuracy skills in disciplines such as knife throwing and archery. Impalement is actually what the performers endeavor to avoid – the thrower or marksman aims near the target rather than at them. The objective is to land the throw or shot as close as possible to the assistant's body without causing injury.
In circus and vaudeville acts, a target girl is a female assistant in "impalement" acts such as knife throwing, archery or sharpshooting. The assistant stands in front of a target board or is strapped to a moving board and the impalement artist throws knives or shoots projectiles so as to hit the board and miss the assistant. The image or character of the target girl has become an icon in fiction and visual media.
Adam Oscar Stern is an American conductor. Born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States, Stern was trained at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He received his MFA in conducting in 1977 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest music student in CalArts' history to receive a master's degree.
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (IFCC) is a community-based arts center located in North Portland, Oregon, United States.
Becca Bernstein is an American artist. She lives and works in Oregon and Scotland.
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its performances take place in the Keller Auditorium and Newmark Theatre, both part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Portland Opera also produces a separate subscription series of touring Broadway musicals, which also take place at the Keller Auditorium.
The Munich Biennale is a contemporary opera and music theatre festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater, literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by Hans Werner Henze and is held in even-numbered years over 2–3 weeks in the late spring. The festival concentrates on world premieres of theater-related contemporary music, with a particular focus on commissioning first operas from young composers.
Noah Howard Mickens is an American performance artist, showman, and writer from Portland, Oregon, primarily known for his contributions to vaudevillian revival, and as a ringmaster and master of Ceremonies for several theatrical circus troupes. His stage persona, William Batty currently serves as the ringmaster of the Wanderlust Circus, as well as the emcee of numerous vaudevillian and bohemian events in the area.
Wanderlust Circus is a theatrical circus troupe based in Portland, Oregon, founded in 2006 by creative partners Noah Mickens and Nick "The Creature" Harbar. Since 2006, Wanderlust Circus has grown from a small band of creatives to a full-fledged circus troupe, and non-profit organization. The organization presently comprises a team of acrobats, a 10-piece swing band, a trick-roping cowboy clown; and several aerialists, contortionists, hand balancers, jugglers, and dancers. Their most popular recurring shows have been The White Album Christmas, A Circus Carol, and the dance party series MegaBounce.
David Schiff is an American composer, writer and conductor whose music draws on elements of jazz, rock, and klezmer styles, showing the influence of composers as diverse as Stravinsky, Mahler, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and Terry Riley. His music has been performed by major orchestras and festivals around the United States and by soloists David Shifrin, Regina Carter, David Taylor, Marty Ehrlich, David Krakauer, Nadine Asin and Peter Kogan. He is the author of books on the music of Elliott Carter, George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. His work has been honored by the League-ISCM National Composers Competition award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award for his book on Elliott Carter.
Eric Stern is an American vocalist, accordionist, composer, arranger, and pianist based in Portland, Oregon, best known as the founder and artistic director of the band Vagabond Opera. He also performs as a soloist, as well as with the Eric Stern Trio. Stern, with Vagabond Opera, has appeared on NPR and performed at the Kennedy Center, the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, Joe's Pub in New York City.